Nina gripped George tight to her side. “No. No. No. That’s wrong, Georgina Maverick. You’re motherfucking wrong. I’ve learned a lot doing this for so long now. I’ve fucking seen some shit. Some really crazy shit. But I’ve also seen that you can’t make someone do something they don’t fucking want to do—see something they don’t want to see when they’re that fucked in the head from years of that kind of abuse. I know you know it’s the truth, and now you have to find a way to fucking live with it. Because you can’t leave here. Not when you have us. I won’t let you.”
Hot tears fell down her face, hot tears of shame and years of regret she just couldn’t shake.
Nina wrapped her other arm around George and began to rock. “Living can be really hard, but we’re here, and the fuck I’m gonna to let you forget that. We’re here. Just like you’re here for the kid. I’m fucking here, and that means you have to be, too. For better or worse. You have to stay here. You GD matter. To the seniors at your job. To me. To us. To Dex.”
Her heart, so empty for so long, felt full for the first time in almost ever, and she wondered if she was finally finding a place to belong. A place where she could find acceptance, flaws and all. A place where someone had her back, where forced silence didn’t exist.
The wind whistled in her ears as she smiled at how happy that revelation made her. “It might be a little early in our relationship to mention this, but I think I love you, Vampire Lady. Wanna get married?”
Nina laughed and leaned back. “You’re not my fucking type. I like ’em taller. But you know somethin’, you are Dex’s type…”
Was she? George blushed and for the first time she admitted to someone other than her reflection and Gladys that he was her type, too. “I like Dex. A lot.”
“I guess because he’s your guardian angel, he already knows all the shit about your father and what happened?”
George shrugged. “Mostly, yes.” She kept her answer vague, but it was all she could offer at this point.
Nina nodded, tucking her dark hair away from her face. “It’s better to start a relationship with honesty.”
Yeah. Honesty.
“Are we starting a relationship?”
Nina looked up at the sky, where more snow had begun to fall. “I think that’s up to the two of you, but from where I sit, I’m pretty damn sure you’re starting a fucking relationship.”
And then she made another confession. “I’m afraid, Vampire Lady,” she whispered.
Nina tweaked her cheek. “We’re all afraid, kiddo. But every day, you gotta get the hell up, put your warrior pants on, and grab the day by the balls, even if it’s scary as fuck, because that’s what little spitfires like you do.”
George held up their entwined hands. “Will you hold my hand when I do?”
She rolled her eyes and groused, “Yeah. I’ll fuckin’ hold your hand.”
George planted an unexpected kiss on her vampire friend’s cheek. “If you won’t marry me, would you at least consider a long engagement?”
Nina cackled a brittle laugh that landed in the cold night air. She dropped a kiss on the top of George’s head and whispered, “Fuck you.”
Making George howl with laughter.
Chapter 20
George saw Marty rushing toward her office from the window facing the hallway, waving her phone frantically. She popped her office door open and poked her blonde head inside.
“Got a sec?” she asked, her perfectly made up blue eyes on fire.
George pushed back from her desk and nodded, turning away from the computer she’d been pointlessly staring at. “Always for you.” She motioned for Marty to take the chair in front of her desk. “Sit.”
She dropped into the chair and showed George the face of her phone. “Look what I found out about Effie Sampson!”
Effie Sampson would keep her up at night if she slept. It had been a bit since her last encounter with Effie. She hadn’t heard any voices in her head with the kind of direction she’d received for Justin, and each time she ran into Effie at work, the woman went in the other direction, leaving George wondering if Nina’s mind-meld had truly worked.
Yet, she still had no idea what Effie needed.
George looked at the phone and the picture of someone’s Facebook page. “Isn’t that the guy whose page Effie had on her laptop?”
Marty nodded with obvious excitement, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. “Yep. It is—and guess who he is?”
Maybe she should have tried to figure that out herself? After all, that was her job as an angel, but she’d let her focus falter when Justin came onto the scene. Add in the attempt at stealing her wings, and her job, and she was doing a piss-poor job of keeping her responsibilities on point.
She cupped her chin, leaning her elbow on her desk. “Who is he?”
“Effie Sampson’s son!”
Her mouth fell open and she blinked. “What?”
“Uh-huh. He’s her biological son. Remember when you told me she lived in Texas? Weeell, she left Texas because she had a baby. A baby she gave up for adoption!”
George was flabbergasted. “How did you figure this out?”
Marty waved a hand with a facetiously coy smile. “I fished around on Facebook and found out he lived two towns over from where Effie lived when she was in Texas. I found out where she lived before New York purely by chance, when I was chatting with one of the seniors who’d tried and failed to get to know her. Anywho, she left for New York the same year he was born. Then I dug some more and found a friend of a friend of David Eisen’s mother. I went to his mother’s page on Facebook and saw a post advocating adoption. And theeen,” she
